


Gift of Tongues

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Number The Stars [10]
Category: Numb3rs, Stargate Atlantis, Thoughtcrimes (2003)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: Thoughtcrimes(/any), Freya McAllister, the NSA made her learn a variety of languages to make her more effective.</p><p>Rodney on Amita. Set post-Thirty-Eight Minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gift of Tongues

Rodney wasn't sure what to think of Amita. She was brilliant, and she was easy on the eyes, but something about her was a little uncanny. Seeing how Rodney was pretty bad at reading people a lot of the time, if he thought she was uncanny, surely everyone else had to have noticed that she was downright bizarre. Except everyone else seemed to like her just fine. Elizabeth respected her. Carson talked to her all the time, and she didn't get offended when he called her a "wee lass". Kusanagi liked her and shared her coveted red bean candies with her. (They were delicious. Rodney had eaten one once, accidentally, and loved them. They were non-citrus. They were perfect. And Kusanagi hoarded them like they were gold.)  
  
Rodney did his best to be polite to her, but he didn't think she liked him. He thought that might have to do with the fact that he'd attempt to bully John Sheppard into coming to Atlantis with the expedition. (In his defense, Sheppard already wanted to go, and Sheppard had baited him for a full fifteen minutes and Rodney had escalated to shouting before Elizabeth broke in and told him that both Sheppard and Amita had accepted invitations on the expedition.) Amita hadn't originally been slated to go with the expedition, so she and Sheppard must have been some kind of package deal. Were they dating? Rodney didn't know.  
  
And he didn't care, because then they were going through the gate, and the city was underwater, and the city's shields were failing, and then there was first contact with Pegasus natives, and there were Wraith, and Amita was busy being sick and fussed over by Carson in the infirmary, and when everything shook out, Atlantis was sort of okay.  
  
Sort of.  
  
Rodney had more important things to focus on, like protecting the city, and its depleting ZPM, and vanishing children.  
  
He figured it out one day in the lab, when he got into another argument with Zelenka (and Rodney was still embarrassed about how he'd panicked and frozen on the jumper and Sheppard had nearly died with that bug on his neck and it was Zelenka who saved the day).  
  
One moment Rodney and Zelenka were debating fine points of higher science, the next Zelenka was screaming at Rodney in Czech, and Rodney was firing back in French.  
  
Sheppard looked intrigued.  
  
Amita watched them, wide-eyed. And then Zelenka got up in Rodney's face, spot something rapid-fire and unintelligible, and Amita choked on her coffee. Sheppard was at her side immediately, pounding her on the back, and Zelenka stormed out of the lab.  
  
"Are you all right?" Kusanagi asked.  
  
"Just fine," Amita wheezed. "Coffee went down the wrong tube."  
  
"Is there something wrong with the coffee?" Grodin asked, alarmed.  
  
Amita shook her head. "No. Just. Zelenka –"  
  
Rodney's eyes went wide. "You understood what he said! What did he say to me?"  
  
Amita shook her head again. "Can't. Can't repeat it." Sheppard handed her a bottle of water, and she gulped greedily.  
  
Grodin raised his eyebrows. "You can understand Czech?"  
  
"And French," Amita said, casting Rodney a pointed look.  
  
He lifted his chin defensively. "What? I doubt I said anything worse than he did."  
  
Kusanagi beamed. "Hontou ni? I thought you only spoke Japanese."  
  
Sheppard raised his eyebrows. "Last I checked, all you had was some high school Spanish."  
  
"Been trying to make myself more useful." Amita shrugged. "They say math is a universal language, but..."  
  
"Right," Sheppard drawled. Something unspoken passed between him and Amita, and Rodney felt the tension in the room rise. How long had they known each other? And why did it matter, that Sheppard hadn't known this detail about her?

"What other languages do you speak?" Rodney asked. As much as he disdained the soft sciences, having Daniel Jackson along for such an international expedition would have been incredibly useful.

"Why?"

"Your math skills are unremarkable, but I could do with a good translator."

"Hey," Sheppard protested. "She's great at math."

"Like you would know good math if it bit you in the ass," Rodney said.

Amita nudged Sheppard. "It's fine. Everyone has to pull double duty on this expedition. I'll help where I can, McKay."

Sheppard opened his mouth to protest, but then he paused, lifted a hand to his earpiece. "Go for Sheppard." He listened. "Yes ma'am. Be right there." And he left the lab.

Amita scooped up a handful of Kusanagi's red bean candies and resumed her place at her laptop. "By the way," she said, "Shep got his masters in math. Computational fluid dynamics."

Rodney blinked.

Amita smiled and continued typing.

Rodney started to mutter under his breath in French, paused, glanced at Amita, and switched over to Latin. When he glanced at Amita again, she was smiling, amused, and he sighed and fell silent.

It was the start of an exasperating friendship.


End file.
